Guest of the Week (10/27/17): Gene Leganza, Forrester Research Inc.

Guest of the Week (10/27/17)

Gene Leganza, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research Inc.

Congratulations Gene! You are theCUBE’s Guest of the Week.

In the 1980s, a popular TV personality named Warner Wolf made a national name for himself during nightly sportscasts by referencing the outcome of a game and then quickly declaring “let’s go to the videotape” to show the audience proof of what he had just described.

Much as Wolf was a storyteller who used video snippets as evidence to back up his claims, chief data officers and their information technology colleagues are increasingly being asked to tell their own stories and derive real value from the information stored in the enterprise stack. Is anyone having success? Let’s go to the video tape.

Retail giant Kroger collects data from 770 million customers and claims $12 billion in incremental revenue from data analytics applied to its loyalty card program. Through analysis of data collected from more than 3 million digital and mobile users of The Weather Channel, the climate forecaster now generates more than half of its revenue from digital operations. And United Parcel Service, which uses more than 100,000 vehicles to ship 4 billion items per year, has saved over 39 million gallons of fuel through the use of data algorithms.

What drives success in successfully monetizing data is often an IT advocate who makes a compelling argument for using data in a way that would enhance business operations.

“You’ve got to go around and find out what’s broken and talk about what can be fixed,” said Gene Leganza, vice president and research director at Forrester Research Inc., as he described the evolving role of CDOs in organizations today. “What can specifically change in your business that you want to change? Someone has to be an evangelist who can tell really meaningful stories.”

Leganza stopped by the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Chief Data Officer Summit in Boston, Massachusetts, and spoke with co-hosts Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm). They discussed roadblocks for data monetization, how different ways of thinking can affect change, the impact of new research in the analytics field, the ability of small companies to gain value, and IBM’s progress in leveraging its own data assets.